Manthan

With the risk of sounding cynical, all this discussion really beats me. All this debate about bringing computing to the poor and making sure the poor use your OS or your vision technology. Sitting in an ivory tower, discussing the merits of eating cake or pastries when people cannot afford bread is laughable. Did anybody bother to find out from the “poor” in “underdeveloped countries” what they really want ? For people who don’t know, in India, broad band internet is accessible at less than Rs.20(0.45$) per hour. These are NASDAQ listed profitable companies offering Broad Band at that rates. Its a more a social problem than a technology problem and I wish somebody would work on that. I can speak for India and what is needed there is social computing. 100 people sharing 10 computers etc, so no single person or body bears the cost of the computer/network and maintainence. Creation of business models around computer networks, using which people can derive some economic benefits or livelihood. Creating a model on the lines of STD booths, is one of the viable solutions.

Om, sums this up very well

The great thing about World Economic Summit at Davos is that as a CEO you can say just about anything, after all it is about the grand vision and the perfect future. Never mind reality!

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.